With the 8-meter telescope such as Subaru telescope, it is impossible to directly image Earth-like planets in the habitable zone of stars. However, the new generation of ELTs provides the necessary resolution to probe close to a significant number of M-type stars. Also, the development of high accuracy WFS&C technologies is essential. One instrument that will target Earth-like planets in the habitable zone of M-type stars is the Planetary System Imager (PSI)[1]}, planned to be installed on the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT)[2]}.
In order to get closer to the PSI, there are going to be some major upgrades on the Nasymth platform at the Subaru telescope in next few years[3]}, as shown in Fig. REF . The first one is the addition inside the AO188 of a near-IR PyWFS that will benefit both the SCExAO and the InfraRed Camera and Spectrograph (IRCS)[4]}.
The second one is the replacement of the current 188-actuator DM with the ALPAO 64x64 actuator DM. This will bring the number of actuators inside the pupil up to 3,000, and the new near IR PyWFS is also designed for this new DM, which means that when both of these modules are going to be installed inside the AO188, we would have an extreme AO capability right after the first stage of correction. Lastly, the third one is going to be the addition of a beam switcher on the Nasmyth platform at the Subaru telescope. This beam switcher will allow for a fast switching or even simultaneous between various instruments, such as SCExAO and IRCS, but also the addition of a new LTAO (Laser Tomography Adaptive Optics) WFSs and potential other visiting instruments.
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